Councilwoman responds to Standard

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I welcome this opportunity to respond in an open way to the news articles of Jan. 14 ("Layton official's absences questioned") and editorial opinion of Jan. 19 ("Be there or resign") concerning my absences at Layton City Council meetings in 2007. Your editorial comment especially warrants a reply since it contained two important inaccuracies that deserve correction.

First, the editorial's comment that the best I could come up with in the interview with your reporter was, "I'm glad I'm missed," ignored my other statements about having to choose between commitments and obligations at the state level and to voters here in Layton. Those are agonizing decisions, and when I do decide to miss a city council meeting I first make sure that a quorum for conducting business will still be present in my absence and that the mayor is aware of my reason for not attending. In every case in 2007, I was out of town and usually out of the state.

Second, and even more important, the Jan. 19 editorial stated that I had "been absent from 18 of the 73 various meetings that council members are expected to attend." According to the public records of minutes posted on the Layton city Web site and verification with city staff that I did in fact attend the work meeting of Dec. 6, there were 51 meetings in 2007. I missed five city council meetings (not six and not "more than 25 percent," as stated in the news story), four work meetings, one budget meeting (but attended the other two, including an all-day meeting) and two special meetings which were held during the work day. I have no idea where the editorial writer came up with the figures of "18 of the 73 various meetings." Even if he counts meetings held in 2006, the numbers don't add up to 73.

For the record, I attended 87 percent of city council meetings (20 out of 23) in 2006, and a total of 38 out of 44 total meetings, as posted on the Web site.

In addition to attending Layton City Council meetings, council members accept assignments by the mayor to serve as liaisons to other committees, commissions and boards. These are also time-consuming responsibilities, and I salute fellow council members for the behind-the-scenes work they do on behalf of our city.

Smith is a member of the Layton City Council.

(Editor's note: The Standard-Examiner's editorial erroneously duplicated the totals for the 23 city council meetings, arriving at 73. The Standard-Examiner regrets this error. The news story was correct at the time of its publication. After the news story and editorial were published, three work/budget/special meetings the city had mistakenly left off its Web site record were added (March 21, March 28 and Dec. 7) to the Web site; Smith attended two of those three meetings. Smith, also after the publication of the news story and editorial, had city staff change her absence from a Dec. 6 work meeting to "present." If Smith was actually present at the meeting for which she had her attendance record altered, she missed 22.6 percent of her 2007 meetings. If she was absent, as the original record indicated, she was absent 24.5 percent of the time.)

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